Contributors

Monday, June 18, 2018

The Russian Iceberg

Remember the old saw about icebergs? "Only ten percent of an iceberg appears above the water."

The passengers of the R.M.S. Titanic might have initially thought that their unsinkable ship could survive a collision with the iceberg that sank it. The Titanic was huge, almost a thousand feet long, 175 feet tall and 90 feet wide. The iceberg was only 50 to 100 feet tall and 200 to 400 feet long.

But it was really 10 times bigger.

The same thing applies to scandals. Only ten percent of a scandal is ever known by the public. And the investigation into the Trump campaign's conspiracy with Russia to defeat Hillary Clinton is slowly revealing the true size of the crime.

The first inkling we had that the Trump campaign was conspiring with Russian hackers was when Trump himself publicly called on Russia to hack Hillary Clinton's emails.

Then we learned Paul Manafort and Trump had the Republican platform plank supporting Ukraine removed, at Russia's behest. Then we learned that Manafort was getting secretly getting millions of dollars from Russian-owned Ukrainian politicians, and he was fired as Trump's campaign manager. Then we learned that Michael Flynn was taking money from the Russians. And then Trump fired James Comey to stop the Russia investigation, according to what Trump himself told NBC News and the Russian ambassador.

Practically every major figure in the Trump campaign had dealings with the Russians: Donald Jr., Carter Page, Jeff Sessions, Paul Manafort, Jared Kushner, Michael Cohen, Roger Stone, etc., etc. And of course Donald Trump himself visited Russia at least twice, and has sold billions of dollars of real estate to Russian oligarchs and mobsters in New York and Florida, and was in bed with Russians in Canadian and Azerbaijani hotel deals.

The Trump strategy on the Russia investigation has always been to deny and delay. When news broke about the meeting at Trump Tower between the Trump campaign and several Russians offering dirt on Clinton the Trump administration issued three or four different stories all within a matter of hours. These lies were all dictated by Trump himself, we later learned in a filing by Trump's own lawyers.

Roger Stone is the latest to admit new revelations. He was in contact with Russian hacker Guccifer and Wikileaks way back. Now Stone admits he was in contact very early on with another Russian ("Henry Greenberg") who was offering him dirt on Clinton.

Stone claims that this guy wanted $2 million, but since "Trump doesn't pay for anything" Stone just laughed the guy out of the room. Yet a short while later Stone was talking to Guccifer and Wikileaks, and Don Jr. was meeting with a Russian hacker and an oligarch's mouthpiece.

Stone is releasing this information now to piggyback on the FBI inspector general's report: Greenberg had served as an FBI informant. But Russian informants like Greenberg are frequently double agents: they report back to Moscow about what the FBI knows. And the only "proof" we have that Greenberg wanted money is Stone's word.

Stone is infamous for the dirty tricks ("ratfucking") he played while working on Dick Nixon's presidential campaign. His credibility is nil.

But the Stone story makes it clear that we know maybe 10% of what went down during the election. That 10% is the few cell phone records, emails and tweets we've seen between the Russians and the Trump campaign, and the meetings they've copped to. Their more substantive contacts, the 90% below the water line, would have left no electronic trail.

So the question is: will the Russian iceberg sink the Trump administration? And will the Republican party go down with the R.M.S. Trump?

No comments: